Sunday, January 6, 2008

It's been the weekend for the political junkies on CNN. Ballot Bowl 2008 - Round 2 - this time Live from New Hampshire.

Saturday, John King anchored 4 hours of live programming that featured clips of the candidates (live at times) campaigning in New Hampshire. What could be more picturesque than snow covered New Hampshire in January?

CNN had correspondents reporting from across the state including Mary Snow, Suzanne Malveaux, Jessica Yellin, Bill Schneider, Dana Bash and Dan Lothian.

I happen to live in one of those small states that the candidates rarely visit. So, getting to hear more than just a 15 second sound bite from their campaign speeches appeals to me.

Sunday, John King was back again to anchor another 4 hours from New Hampshire. There were more campaign stops for the CNN correspondents to cover as the clock counts down to Tuesday's primary.

Mary Snow

Suzanne Malveaux

Dana Bash

Dan Lothian

Jessica Yellin

Bill Schneider

If you turned into CNN between 7:00pm ET and 11:30pm ET Sunday night, you might have wondered if you're cable company had rearranged their channels. CNN rebroadcast the debates that had aired on ABC on Saturday night.

Charlie Gibson moderated the ABC Facebook WMUR debates. Unlike previous debates, this one offered the candidates the opportunity to discuss the topics between themselves, not just answer the questions posed by the moderator. One other unique feature of this debate was that both Republicans and Democrats were debating on the same stage, the same night. Between the two debates as the Republican candidates were leaving the stage and the Democrats where entering, Charlie Gibson asked all the candidates to remain on stage and greet one another. It was an interesting moment seeing all 10 candidates being "nice" to one another.

John King anchored CNN's coverage, but the debates aired unedited.

At the conclusion of the debate, John King was joined by Dana Bash and Jessica Yellin to analyze the ABC debates as well as the debate that had aired on Fox News during the same time slot.

Mystery Journalist

This week's Mystery Journalist was Ted Rowlands.

One last note tonight, MediaBistro's FishbowlDC reported on Friday that John King and Dana Bash were engaged. We haven't gotten any official confirmation of this, but we did notice that Dana Bash was wearing a ring on Sunday.

Those of at All Things CNN would like to offer the couple our congratulations and best wishes on this exciting news.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I really like Ballot Bowl. I can not alwaysbe near a computer to watch on CNN.com.Maybe this is a sneak peek of what is tocome since Jon Klein said something aboutthis sort of thing on Reliable Sources.

I hope CNN really breaks the mole this2008. Like documentaries with thecandidates talking with you about theirlives and where they stand on the issuesin their own words. Somehow I think theywould enjoy the free air time. Also politicsand pop culture.Since John Roberts wasomce a VJ who better to explain to usthe meaning behind some of the biggestpolitcal songs and what the artist meantto express with these songs. LikeDylan and others. I've been researcfhingthe matter and discovered that therewere plenty of songs about Nixon in the70's done by Curtis Mayfield, StevieWonder, Gil Scot Heron and even asong from the 80's called The Message.Also Public Enemy Buffalo Springfiled,Creedemce Clearwater Revival and countlesssothers from the sixties. Even the boss gotpolitcal with Born in the USA.

I really enjoyed the Ballot Bowl. I didn't get to watch much of the first one because it was on during the holidays but I think it is a terrific idea to just show clips of what the candidates are saying. You can see a lot of back peddling while watching it. I do anyways.